Introduction

The idea of this Character design came to me while I was having a look at some Astronomy Websites. I saw pictures and specifications of the planet Saturn and I thought it would be interesting to create a Character from there. I haven't used any concept drawing for this particular model, I wanted to make it up whilst modelling, to see what I would come up with.

Modelling

0: This image is the basic model I exported to ZBrush. I wanted it to be expressionless to avoid the model suggesting any modelling direction or design. Just a human "blank" expression.
image.

1: This is the low-res geometry after ZBrush work. The result of all the moving and pulling I did to get something I was happy with.

2. The same geometry, but on the highest level of detail within ZBrush. I didn't add any small details such as skin wrinkles, pores etc... as it makes it faster to render on max. I also didn't use any displace maps. I then exported a high resolution model from ZBrush to Max.

3. This is the model exported as it looks in 3DSMax without any bump or displacement. There are a few images of the helmet. I used the same process to model the geometry straight away in 3DSMax, without any previous research or design.

4. This is a self-Illuminated render of the bump map for the model. Also there is a render of the model with the bump applied, so I can play with the values to see if is hard enough. This will eventually change when I render the Subsurface Scattering.

5. That has a combination of a few blurred and smooth details with a proper skin detail. That makes almost no necessary for that picture to use displace.

6. Render of the diffuse texture applied to the model. It is self illuminated to see how it fits on the geometry. It also allows me to see if the morphology of the face is clear enough and if I like it so far.

7. Is the combination of the SSS, texture, light colour and very soft Shadows. Gives me the base to start working.
8. Is a sample of a texture I have used for the model skin. It Has been created by mixing several textures from the "Total Textures v11 Alien Organic" and "v4 Humans and Creatures" Texture Collections.

9. The Here are a few samples of the layers I have used to build up the picture. I used Photoshop to compose it layer by layer. That gave me much more control of the final result even on a as simple a picture as this is. It can come in even more handy if you have a full, very complex scene, as it can save having to re-render an entire scene. You will only have to re-render certain parts if a mistake has been made.

10. CLICK HERE to view an animated Gif of the full compositing process to get the final picture. With all the layers I have used. Colour, Brightness and Contrast correction, background etc...

Final Image

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